Ugandan soldiers under African Union (AU) command patrol as part of a mission to combat Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in Obo in the Central African Republic (CAR) on May 11, 2014. Conflict continues to take place in the area with reported abductions of local men and boys. AFP PHOTO/Stringer (Photo credit STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

NZACKO, Central African Republic (AP) — The African troops hoped the latest defector from the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group would have fresh insight into the location of infamous warlord Joseph Kony.

But Sam Opio, a senior rebel commander who defected last week, shook his head and said he hadn’t seen rebel leader Kony since 2010.

He is not alone. All recent defectors have denied seeing or communicating with Kony in the last few years, complicating the work of U.S.-backed Ugandan troops who are hunting down rebels in the dense, often-impenetrable jungles of Central Africa that cover the size of France. An Associated Press reporter recently trailed soldiers tracking a small group of rebels.

Ugandan commanders lead the chase for Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court over many atrocities, from Obo, a tactical base set up in the middle of a sprawling bush in the southeastern part of Central African Republic. Their mandate – to kill or capture Kony -sets a high bar for foot soldiers who may also be at a disadvantage against a man who has spent all of his adult life in the bush.

“He’s like a myth,” Ugandan Lt. Col. John Kagwisa, the intelligence officer for military operations against the rebels, said of Kony. “His (fighters) see him as some kind of god, their spiritual god. They say that Kony can see what you’re doing in the bush even if you’re many miles away.”

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 20 (Reuters) – The Central African Republic has been in contact with warlord Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army fighters to urge them to surrender, but Kony’s whereabouts are still unknown, the United Nations and the African Union said on Wednesday.

Kony, who has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, waged a brutal guerrilla war against Ugandan government in the north of the country for nearly two decades, before fleeing with his fighters into the jungles of central Africa around 2005.

A 5,000-strong African Union Regional Task Force, supported by about 100 U.S. Special Forces, has been hunting Kony and his fighters. Most of them are thought to be hiding in jungles straddling the borders of Central African Republic, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo.

“The current military pressure has kept the LRA, including its leader Joseph Kony, on the run,” the AU’s special envoy on the LRA, Francisco Madeira, told the U.N. Security Council.

“This heightened pressure forced the LRA to try his time-tested tricks of buying time by duping the CAR authorities into “negotiations” to purportedly allow Kony and his LRA to “surrender” and re-settle in Nzako, CAR,” he said.

Instead, Madeira said, according to the Regional Task Force Kony has used the negotiations as a window of opportunity to relocate many of his fighters to north-eastern CAR.

Madeira and the head of the U.N. Regional Office for Central Africa, Abou Moussa, who also briefed the council, said that Michel Djotodia, interim president of the virtually lawless Central African Republican, told them he had contacted Kony.

“His people have been in contact with him (Kony), and they wanted to encourage him to surrender,” Madeira told reporters after the briefing. “Many reports indicate that he is suffering from some serious illness, uncharacterized illness.”

Djotodia became interim CAR president after northern Seleka rebels seized the capital, Bangui, in March and ousted President Francois Bozize. Since then the landlocked, nation of 4.6 million people has slipped into chaos.

Kony and his commanders are accused of abducting thousands of children throughout the region to use as fighters in a rebel army that earned a reputation for chopping off limbs as a form of discipline.

“Military operations have degraded the LRA and limited it to pursuing survival tactics. However, recent attacks in South Sudan attributed to the LRA are a reminder that the group remains a serious and unpredictable threat to communities throughout the sub-region,” Moussa told the Security Council. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Christopher Wilson)